


Leaving the Secret Garden

by Sxpmgrntsds



Category: bts, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Angst and Romance, Childhood Friends, First Times, Forbidden Love, Gardener!Namjoon, Goodbyes, Kim Namjoon | RM & Min Yoongi | Suga are Best Friends, Kim Namjoon | RM is a Sweetheart, Leaving Home, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Prince!Yoongi, Slice of Life, Soft Min Yoongi | Suga, Time Skips, secret garden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:02:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24919534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sxpmgrntsds/pseuds/Sxpmgrntsds
Summary: He thinks about Namjoon and wonders if it would’ve been better if he had never met the young boy all those years ago. He laughs miserably to himself as he thinks about what Namjoon used to tell him.‘It was in our destiny’It was something Yoongi used to admire, how confident Namjoon was in his words, how he truly believed that they would make it together. He knew good and well what it meant for two people to fall in love, when one was a prince and the other had no traces of royalty. But he still pushed through, breaking down Yoongi’s walls, and carving a home for himself in Yoongi’s chest. And now, Yoongi is left to deal with the aftermath of it all. To deal with loving him or to deal with having loved him. The decision doesn’t come easy. It never does.
Relationships: Kim Namjoon | RM/Min Yoongi | Suga
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28
Collections: 2020 Namgi Spring Fest





	Leaving the Secret Garden

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [namgificfestspring20](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/namgificfestspring20) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> **(Submitted by Anonymous - Prompt added by Admin)**
> 
> yoongi is a prince and namjoon is the castle gardener 
> 
> dnw: murder/mcd

Bare feet stepped out of stone walls and onto damp soil, the aftermath of last night’s rainstorm. They trod fast and meaningfully past the dew kissed grass, approaching the horizon where the sun still hid from the earth. The sky was lit with the beginnings of morning and Yoongi was on a mission: to find his secret garden friend, Namjoon.

He was halfway through the apple blossom trees, still flowering pale petals, when he saw the hunched figure of the other boy. A slow grin grew on his face as Yoongi sped up into a jog calling after his friend in a voice gentle enough to not disturb the day’s early peace, but loud enough to capture the other’s attention.

A swift turning of the head revealed the other boy’s dirt ridden face, a dimpled grin welcoming Yoongi as he always does.

It had been this way ever since Yoongi could remember. As the youngest child of one of the lesser kings in the southern islands, Yoongi was given the freedom to roam the castle grounds without much or any supervision. There was no impending warfare to worry about, no civil unrest within the small population they ruled over, and no scarcity of resources in their self-sustaining kingdom -- if their little island could even be called that. Therefore, Yoongi was used to indulging his curious nature and venturing into places that royalty don’t typically waste their time with. The secret garden being one of these places.

Namjoon waits for Yoongi’s small legs to catch up to him before they both break into a sprint, leaving behind the flowering orchard, the trimmed berry-filled hedges, and the rows of their favorite colors in exchange for the valley beyond.

Yoongi had first stumbled upon this small miracle of flora a few years back, when he had been six summers old and running away from a stray dog on their grounds. He had run past the royal garden, tripped on an odd tree root and scraped his knee, and continued to run farther into what he then learned was a valley behind the garden, hidden by a thin lining of trees and leading to an expanding forest that led to somewhere far away.

The dog was quite small, a Jindo puppy. Though it had not bitten Yoongi, it was too excited and jumpy for a young Yoongi to not interpret as a threat, which is when he started to run. The puppy, naturally ecstatic that the human decided to play with it, gave chase.

This was how Namjoon first found Yoongi: running in the midst of blooming hyacinths with tears flooding his eyes, and a barely 10 pound dog hot on his trail.

After Namjoon’s initial laughter, he realized that the little boy was royalty by his emerald green tunic tucked into sleek black pants. He hastily scooped the puppy up into his arms and nervously bowed deeply to apologize to the young prince, an entire summer older than him.

A few words, taunts, clarifications, and jokes later, they became best friends, the way children so easily do.

Now, five summers later, Yoongi is no longer in the single digits of his youth, and who best to share the day with than Namjoon?

They race each other around the open valley, hidden from the castle grounds, laughing and galavanting about the misty grassland, and Yoongi thinks it unfair that Joon was blessed with longer legs and a sturdier frame while Yoongi’s struggle to keep up is clear in the rosy tint of his cheeks. Namjoon, the merciful boy he is, notices and immediately halts so that Yoongi crashes into his back and they both fall forward from the impact.

The muddied soil cushions their fragile bodies. Yoongi rolls off of Namjoon and they both catch their breaths, giggly and blameless on the wet ground.

“It’s my birthday!” Yoongi announces to the sky, bright eyed and still pumped with adrenaline.

Namjoon turns on his side and pokes Yoongi’s cheek with a finger, “for having lived a decade, you still look like a wee baby.”

Yoongi scrunches his nose, displeased.

“Well, since I’m older than you, and your prince, it is in my birth right to ask for a gift, isn't it?”

“If that is what his royal highness wishes, then let me be a wizard in his debt.”

Yoongi takes a moment to stare at Namjoon’s dimples, subdued, but still there.

“I want a kiss.”

For a beat, everything is silent, and both boys’ faces turn thoughtful at the prospect.

“You wish to touch your lips to mine?” Namjoon clarifies slowly, as if he can’t believe his ears.

Yoongi rolls his eyes in response, “Well, that is what a kiss is, isn’t it?”

Namjoon picks himself up, now sitting next to Yoongi and gazing down at his flushed face. He braces his arms on either side of Yoongi’s head, the same way they’ve spied couples in the gardens do so after Yoongi insists that every castle matter is his business to know. Namjoon leans forward and pauses, allowing Yoongi to decide whether he’d like to continue this play, or if he’d rather ask for something else. But Yoongi doesn’t seem keen on moving from his spot, a little too comfortable under Namjoon’s body as he puts his own hands on Namjoon’s shoulders to ground himself.

“A kiss,” Yoongi repeats.

“A kiss,” Namjoon agrees.

Their lips touch for the smallest of seconds, a quick peck before they both scrambled away from one another, mouths covered, and half embarrassed, but half in awe of what they’ve done.

Yoongi thinks back to the couple in the garden and can maybe understand their reasoning. Kisses are good, he decides, and kisses with Namjoon are absolute magic.

In his blissed out state he doesn’t wonder why his parents don’t kiss.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Another 6 summers pass and the two’s relationship doesn’t go any further. Yoongi is now taking on his princely duties, though nowhere near as taxing as his older brother’s, the crown prince. He both loves and hates it. He loves it because certain subjects fascinate him. Geography, military science, and royal politics are all areas in which Yoongi has excelled even his brother. He hates it because of training; his dainty frame and lack of muscle leave him a poor soldier, and his developing asthma did nothing to ameliorate his troubles on the practice field. Nevertheless, Yoongi’s strategic prowess leaves him in good standing as the hand of the future king. 

Unfortunately for his father, Yoongi doesn’t care much for the title if he’s honest. He’s spent a good amount of his formative years filling his head with dreams that he’s had to give up on in the name of the throne, so he’d rather pass on the duties of the hand to his cousin, who seems cruel upon first glance, but is much kinder than he himself lets on in the public eye. He’s the one who told Yoongi that leading must be done in one of two ways, love, or fear, and love is hardly something to depend on at war.

Yoongi had shared this sentiment with Namjoon before, and the younger teen was quick to laugh it off.

“I think that’s that’s a narrow, Machiavellian approach to ruling,” he says, “he leaves ruling through fear as the only option, negating his initial claim that there is another.”

Yoongi thinks his cousin is a reasonable man. His cousin explained that fear doesn’t have to be bone deep to the point that you threaten your own people with quartering warriors, but subtle so the people understand that they are devoting their services and commodities to the royalty in return for protection and the diluted liberty to live as they please under the crown.

“Then what would you propose?” Yoongi challenges, “how would you rule? Through love or fear?”

“Both.”

Namjoon looks away from the row of tulips they are currently walking through and tilts his head at Yoongi, “I want them to fear how much they love me.”

Yoongi scoffs as Namjoon tries to purse his lips and prevent the escape of a smile.

“If you love someone, why should you be afraid?”

They pause at the end of the row, the flowers behind them, looking into a thin forest that expands to somewhere.

“I don’t know, but sometimes I am.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Perhaps Yoongi has proven himself too good of a scholar, because at barely 18 summers, his father meets with him to discuss his future. He tells Yoongi, unsurprisingly, that he is unfit to be a soldier and his royal status would be wasted as a man behind the scenes only planning, and organizing, and never seen in action. Therefore, his father proposes a marriage between his youngest son and a local duchess. The duchess is younger than Yoongi by 3 summers, but his father insists that they are a good match and that by this time next year, they shall officially meet and be wed the year after.

Yoongi doesn’t bother to retaliate. Doesn’t bother to explain that he cannot give another his heart when it is no longer in his possession. He wonders if the duchess, too, holds the heart of another. And he feels pain, a pain he hasn’t felt since the time he’d realised that some dreams aren’t meant for princes. Some dreams only come alive in the darkest of nights or the earliest of mornings in the secret garden.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Namjoon is the first to hear the news directly from Yoongi’s mouth. His lips curl down and his forehead creases when Yoongi tries to convince him that nothing will come out of it.

“Then don’t meet her in the first place.”

“Namjoon, you know I can’t just not meet her,” Yoongi says, but in his head he agrees, he wants to avoid the meeting altogether as well, “listen, I’ll agree to the meeting, but after I’ll come up with some reasonable excuse as to why I can’t marry her.”

Namjoon’s face washes with anger.

“What do you mean, you’ll come up with an excuse? Is her age not off-putting enough?”

“Namjoon, are you forgetting that you’re also younger than I am?”

“Not by three entire summers, I’m not!”

Yoongi doesn't bother to humor the argument. He knows age isn’t the important factor here. He knows Namjoon is trying to say, _ ‘if she is to be your lover, then what am I?’ _

“Namjoon, you’re my best friend, you know --

“Screw being your best friend! Is that really all you see me as? After all this time?” Namjoon pulls on his hair in frustration, “best friends don’t kiss on their birthdays, best friends don’t plant rose bushes for each other and make blood oaths on their thorns to love each other, best friends don’t get upset at the prospect of marrying someone else. So tell me,  _ your majesty _ , are we best friends?”

Namjoon ends up sneering at Yoongi, getting up from his cross legged position under one of the secret garden’s almond trees. He pats the nonexistent dirt off his beige pants, almost as if he’s waiting for Yoongi to object. To tell him to stay.

Yoongi does nothing. Namjoon glances at Yoongi once again and begins to head back to his quarters.

He hasn’t gone a yard before Yoongi speaks, so softly that the words are almost lost in the wind. But Namjoon hears them.

“I love you.”

Namjoon looks back and Yoongi continues just as softly, “I’ll always love you.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

A year later and they lay side by side under a starry night. The sky is crowded with light, and for a second Yoongi is scared that they are no longer hidden in the secret forest, that they are much too visible.

“Will you marry her?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you should,” Namjoon muses.

“Is that so,” Yoongi says, getting irritated, but not knowing why.

“As a prince, the marriage will benefit both families, will it not? And you’ve told me she was beautiful, that must count for something.”

_ It doesn’t _ , Yoongi thinks, and if he thinks hard enough, maybe Namjoon will hear too,  _ she’s beautiful, but she’s not you. _

“You won’t get many other offers within a kingdom this small. The other option is to choose from another kingdom, and if they happen to be an heir, that would mean that you would leave.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Yoongi says.

Yoongi doesn’t care to explain himself, doesn’t care to reveal that even marrying the duchess and staying within the castle walls would still mean leaving. Yoongi wonders if his parents both left love for marriage, and maybe that’s why they don’t kiss. He wonders why Namjoon doesn’t kiss him now like he did when they were younger, why he’s become ever so slightly more distant.

“You told me yourself, a prince has duties,” Namjoon interrupts Yoongi’s thoughts.

Yoongi feels an overwhelming pain pierce through his entire being. His blood runs cold, the blue it was destined to be.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I thought you of all people would attempt to lead me astray.”

It’s not a fair thing to say. After all, Namjoon was the first to tighten his grip when he felt their hands slipping from one another.

Now, Namjoon has the same thoughtful look on his face that Yoongi is accustomed to. The same face he wears when Yoongi asks why he never gets rid of the weeds in the secret garden. The daisies and dandelions that invade the hyacinths.  _ ‘Well, weeds are flowers, too, aren’t they?’ _

Yoongi feels like a weed, like he’s imposing himself into a space that wasn’t meant for him, because Namjoon’s face suddenly falls, and Yoongi thinks he looks sad in a way that doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Yoongi thinks he’s suffocating under the stars. He wants to scream at Namjoon, to yell in his face,  _ ‘I’m a flower, too,’  _ because Namjoon thinks that weeds are flowers.

But Yoongi says nothing, and Namjoon just lies there with that sad look on his face, and for the first time, they are both afraid.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s winter now. Yoongi will marry the duchess come spring.

Yoongi decides that if he couldn’t give Namjoon spring, the least he could do was offer winter.

He arrives in the gardener’s quarters unannounced. It’s a mid-sized shack equipt with a kitchen space, beds, and an outhouse that Yoongi wrinkles his nose at as he walks to the entrance. He’d never had to use an outhouse before and he’s hoping his bladder won’t make him lose another first for this man.

The royal garden is bare, a layer of snow covers the dried up branches, and thin sheets of ice weigh down any surviving leaves. The gardener's quarters are dead; the shack has icicles hanging down the roof and fogged up windows. The only signs of life are the smoke exiting the chimney and the footprints that have not yet been covered in new snowfall.

Yoongi knocks once, twice.

The door opens and there stands a man that looks like Namjoon, but older with greying hair and wrinkled skin from hours spent in the sun. The royal gardener looks down at him in surprise, his own mouth is wearing permanent frown, but somehow, Yoongi feels more welcomed now than he ever does on the receiving end of his father’s tight smiles.

“Namjoon is inside reading by the fire,” the man says, “we don't have much to do in winters, so it’s better he teach himself something indoors than get sick outside. That being said, I still have to visit your kitchens to check up on the wood stocked and the servant’s quarters. They’re always causing trouble there aren’t they?”

Yoongi doesn’t know how to respond. He’s never really cared for the servant’s quarters, the matriarch is in charge of running the castle, the patriarch, the kingdom.

Namjoon’s father must come to some sort of understanding because he then steps out, leaving the door open for Yoongi, and announces his departure, “I’ll be back by sun down at the earliest.”

Yoongi bows and watches the man walk the same path he’d just come from.

He enters, locking the door behind him and removes his overcoat, left in his common tunic and loose slacks.

Namjoon is sitting where his father had said he would be, glasses perched on the edge of his nose and reading what looks like an agronomist’s handbook.

Yoongi coughs and Namjoon looks up in alarm before taking the sight of Yoongi in.

“What are you reading?”

“In short, how to survive in the wilderness for a few nights.”

Yoongi is a bit confused, but Namjoon is more into fantastical theories than he.

“I see, and why would you need to survive?”

“Just in case I ever leave.”

Yoongi is shaken, “why would you leave?”

“I don’t know, we have no plans, my father and I,” Namjoon discloses, “but sometimes I wonder if what’s keeping me here will ever change, and if it does, nothing else is holding me here.”

Yoongi knows why Namjoon stays, why he delayed his own dream of higher education outside the small kingdom. Namjoon has told him before, when they were children that he’d dreamed of leaving the island and sailing back to the mainland, to the metropolitan area that had cars and electricity. Yoongi thinks bitterly about his own aspirations, about how the least he could do was prevent Namjoon’s dreams from dying as well.

“You should go.”

Namjoon stiffens, turning a page in his book with an image of a deltoid leaf and words classifying the plants it belongs to.

“This isn’t the garden,” Namjoon says, changing the subject and placing his book aside, “there’s nothing here for you.”

“You’re here aren’t you?”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun is just starting to set and Yoongi asks where Namjoon’s father is.

“If he’d seen you on his way out I think he’s chosen to sleep in the servant’s quarter for the night.”

Yoongi blushes at the implication and blames it on the heat of the dying fire.

They are both laying on Namjoon’s cot, as if proper manners didn’t matter here. They didn’t matter in the garden, so Yoongi sees this as no different.

Namjoon observes Yoongi, always letting the older be the one to verbalize his demands before taking the lead. But this time, Yoongi doesn’t feel the need to say much, just put his hand on Namjoon’s chest and sigh three words.

“I want you.”

Tentative lips meet fleetingly before all precaution is thrown out the window and they devour each other whole.

Namjoon licks into Yoongi’s mouth, who opens up, wanting more, more, more.

Yoongi climbs on top of Namjoon, hands on his chest, one hand reaching for Namjoon’s face as the other trails down, lower and lower.

A muted groan from Namjoon breaks their kiss. They’re panting now, the only concern is getting closer and touching more.

Yoongi doesn’t know how this goes. His older siblings have had their fair share of affairs, but Yoongi knows this is no simple affair. He was told, in naughty whispers by his sisters, how to please a woman. But when it came to another man, Yoongi was in the dark.

He didn’t want to ruin the heated moment, but he rationalized that this would benefit them both.

“Joon,” he says as Namjoon continues to massage his neck and mouth at his uncovered shoulder.

He gets a hum in response, so Yoongi detaches himself from Namjoon, leaning back onto his thighs only to brush against Namjoon’s clothed hardness, another groan.

“Joon, I don’t… I’m not sure…” Yoongi trails off.

Namjoon’s head clears instantly and he barks out a laugh.

“It’s not funny,” Yoongi pouts and Namjoon brings a hand up to trace his lips with his finger.

“No, you’re right. It’s not. It’s just,” Namjoon looks sheepishly at him, “I’m not too sure what to do either. But I have supplies.”

“Supplies?”

Namjoon manhandles Yoongi into a sitting position on the side of the cot as he opens a drawer and pulls out a vial.

“Oil. So it, you know, doesn't hurt as much.”

“It hurts?” Yoongi is a bit more alert.

“I don’t know. It shouldn’t if I prepare you well enough. But in order to do that I need this and I need you to tell me if anything feels too much.”

“You stole oil from the kitchens for this? Were you expecting...”

Namjoon is quick to answer, “No, no, no, not at all, my prince.” Yoongi snorts at the title.

“I use it for… carnal desires.”

Yoongi can’t help but giggle, “just say you pleasure yourself. I have the same parts, I only ask because I’ve taken oils from the kitchens.”

Namjoon’s eyes widen, “Yoongi, you can’t just use any oil, this is taken from sunflowers and the almond tree, it’s safer.”

Yoongi waves him off, “then I suppose you’ll have to supply me from now on. Now, where were we?”

Namjoon takes the cue to toss the vial onto the cot and hold Yoongi’s arms close to his. He kisses one knuckle, then another.

“Yoongi, love, we are wherever you want to be. We don’t have to do anything. You know I’m happy as long as you are.”

“Spoken like a true subject.”

“Am I not your loyal subject, here to please you, my prince?”

He halts and lets Yoongi decide where the night will lead them. 

Yoongi leans in, one hand pulling lightly on the waistband of Namjoon’s pants and the other cupping his cheek. He kisses him chastly on the lips.

“You are simply mine.”

He doesn’t think, he just feels love, love, love.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

They wake up the next morning, and Yoongi redresses himself in yesterday’s clothes that Namjoon hung up for him,  _ ‘to prevent wrinkles, your majesty’. _

Yoongi leaves long before Namjoon’s father comes back, but not early enough for the new now to cover his retreat.

It felt like the beginning of goodbye.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The date of the wedding comes faster than Yoongi expected.

Suddenly he’s being fitted for ceremonial robes with the family crest and told to not bulk up in the coming weeks otherwise his robes won’t fit.

He becomes the talk of the castle and he hates every second of it. The only part he doesn’t hate is when the decorations are being placed because he sees Namjoon and his father, both carrying in flowers and other table pieces for the dining hall turned wedding hall.

He tries to catch Namjoon’s eyes, but the other man has immersed himself in his work. He places different colored flowers in different combinations, noting those that please the matriarch so when the time comes, they can cut the required flowers. He then counts up the extra serving tables and chairs, noticing a shortage of a few chairs and ensures that they will have enough wood to send the carpenter by nightfall.

Yoongi gives up his attempts at grabbing attention and quickly shovels another mouthful of cake samples before anyone can admonish him.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yoongi is settling down for bed when he feels something under his bed.

He takes out a small paper, a handwritten note:  _ where is your best kept secret? - J _

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yoongi ventures outside the garden, past the lining of trees, and though he feels like something tremendous is just about to change, his heart tells him that this is not the last time he will walk through the garden.

He spots Namjoon’s shadowy figure, stoic and grand. He muses that Namjoon would make a good soldier.

“Joon.”

“My prince.”

“Your prince.”

Namjoon shifts his weight from one foot to another, as if he doesn’t know what to say. For a moment, Yoongi wonders if Namjoon is giving him his blessings for the wedding and the thought alone makes him want to cry.

“I’m leaving,” Namjoon breathes out, the weather chilly enough that Yoongi can see it.

“But, I haven’t left,” Yoongi says.

“But, you will,” Namjoon smiles, and it’s a sad smile, “in a fortnight and three days you will be gone as I know you. Tell me, what, then, do I stay for?”

Yoongi wills himself to not cry, but the wobble of his lips prevail and he realizes his eyes are already misted over.

“I’m your prince,” he insists, almost childlike.

“I don’t want you to be my prince,” Namjoons says, “I just want you to be mine.”

“You’re being selfish, Namjoon. Do you not understand what a prince’s duties are? Do you not understand that I have to get married to better relationships among the powerful and wealthy? Do you not understand that, unlike you, I don’t have that freedom to just up and away from this life?”

“Freedom is not something to be given, Yoongi,” Namjoon laughs hoarsely, “if you don’t want this, if you are not happy, why won’t you take the chance to be?”

“That is not a choice!” Yoongi cries.

“Was I ever a choice to you? Or did you think I’d wait for you forever, hand and foot like the servants in the castle? What am I to you?”

“That’s not fair,” Yoongi goes quiet, “I don’t know what to do. I want to do all the things you’re asking of me, but I don’t know how. Please, Namjoon, you have to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“I’m scared.”

Namjoon’s shoulders relax as he looks up at the sky. The stars are few and far inbetween tonight. It’s dark.

“Me too.”

Yoongi takes a step forward, checking Namjoon’s reaction, and brings a hand to his cheek just in time to catch the first tear.

“I'm so sorry, Namjoon,” he says, “I didn’t mean for you to feel that way.”

“I know,” Namjoon sobs, “I know, I’m sorry, too.”

Yoongi pulls Namjoon in and though he’s shorter, Namjoon tucks his head into Yoongi’s shoulder and shakes. Yoongi whispers sweet nothings into his ear as he combs his hair, it’s gotten long.

After a few shared tears, they untangle and Namjoon suddenly holds Yoongi’s shoulders.

“Yoongi,” he says solemnly, “listen to me. Come with me. My father and I, we’ve been storing supplies and mapping out a route to the city. It’s an area with a king too far away to really care about the people and what they do. I’ll go to school, and you can, too.”

“I don’t want to go to school,” Yoongi says somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

“You don’t have to learn maths, Yoongi, you can continue with politics, maybe become a lawyer, I hear the city goes by laws instead of decrees and orders. Yoongi you’re young, we both are. You’re barely 20 summers and I’m barely 19, we have our whole lives ahead of us.”

“But what if our whole lives are just full of regret?”

Namjoon considers this carefully, “Yoongi, do you think you will regret leaving with me?”

“Of course not, I just can’t do it,” Yoongi argues. He’s tired now, the pressure of the wedding and now if Namjoon’s departure takes a toll on him all at once.

“Then tell me, will you regret the wedding?”

Yoongi doesn't have to answer. Doesn’t have to say that he’ll regret letting Namjoon slip away from his grips.

“Namjoon, I’m tired, I --

“Go back and go to bed,” Namjoon says calmly.

Yoongi lifts an eyebrow.

Namjoon repeats himself, “We aren’t leaving right now, there is still too much preparation for the wedding that we must get done. We are leaving three days before the wedding, the flowers will still be fresh and the bride will not arrive until the morning after so that’ll keep some people from looking for us as we leave the island. The ride is four days max to the mainland and we’re going with an entire crew. The harbor is past here, past the forest.”

“Namjoon, I don’t --

“Don’t say anything,” Namjoon begs him, “I’ll wait for you until the first light of morning at the latest, but I can’t do any more than that.”

“Namjoon.” Yoongi says again.

“Yoongi, I love you. I love you so much that it hurts, but I can’t wait forever.”

“I love you, always,” Yoongi says.

Neither man knows who initiated what, but suddenly they are kissing and it’s quick, and chaste, and all too intimate. Yoongi wonders if Namjoon tastes goodbye.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yoongi doesn’t sleep, doesn’t dream for a week before it gets to him. He hasn’t seen Namjoon either, no longer needed during preparations. He has been left to his own devices for the time being.

It thundered the day before, a sign that spring has finally arrived. The castle took this as a blessing of course, word of mouth reached Yoongi, the servants were all gossiping about how  _ ‘the showers of spring birth a special kind of love’. _

He thinks about Namjoon and wonders if it would’ve been better if he had never met the young boy all those years ago. He laughs miserably to himself as he thinks about what Namjoon used to tell him.

_ ‘It was in our destiny’ _

It was something Yoongi used to admire, how confident Namjoon was in his words, how he truly believed that they would make it together. He knew good and well what it meant for two people to fall in love, when one was a prince and the other had no traces of royalty. But he still pushed through, breaking down Yoongi’s walls, and carving a home for himself in Yoongi’s chest. And now, Yoongi is left to deal with the aftermath of it all. To deal with loving him or to deal with having loved him. The decision doesn’t come easy. It never does.

He looks outside, the secret garden hidden behind the lining of trees that are now taunting him. He wonders where the feeling of warmth went. He looks over to his bag of clothes, papers, and trinkets, wondering why winter forgot to pack the cold when it left. He watches the sun set over the trees.

He picks up the bag, a bit heavy, but nothing to complain about, and walks out of his bedroom. Each step down the stairs lights him on fire. He is hurrying down the halls already abandoned for the night.

He makes it to the castle gates, and pauses to turn around. It was true, this was goodbye.

Bare feet step out of stone walls and onto damp soil, the aftermath of last night’s rainstorm. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I hope you guys like this! Technically Namjoon is the castle gardener's son, and Yoongi isn't a crown prince, but I hope that's okay lol.  
> Also I don't have a beta, so I'm sorry for any errors!  
> Otherwise, this was really fun to write and I'm so happy I got to be a part of this fic-fest!  
> Let me know how you liked it!  
> :D


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